The GAS project has developed so incrementally that Voigt plundering his past isn’t unwelcome or unexpected, and there are enough subtle developments for Der Lange Marsch to strike a distinct tone. ... There’s one development, though, that has already made Der Lange Marsch the most divisive GAS album: the high-pitched beep on every other beat. Some listeners don’t notice it, others seem able to tune it out, and for many, it’s an impassable barrier to entry.

Fu##in’ Up makes a convincing case for Ragged Glory as the definitive Crazy Horse album, showcasing the group in their purest, crudest state, without any of the counter-balancing pop singles or acoustic reprieves that colored more hallowed classics like Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and Zuma.

In many ways, God's Son is lyrically superior to Illmatic. Nas has created an album that is at once mournful and resilient, street-savvy and academic.

Opeth have gotten better at self-editing with Sorceress; still, their jammier tendencies fail them in the album’s lackadaisical middle, showing they may just be a little too cool.

Another thrilling, excellent record.

Fits feels like the band's formal first LP--lots of what makes them unique, and then those somewhat awkward "growth" points. That initial itchiness, in other words, never really goes away.

Metals is a vivid evocation of a place that touches on fittingly vast themes about nature, love, and life itself.

The disjointed juxtaposition of styles on this disc is so pronounced that it feels intentional; like The White Album or Jega's Spectrum, this record underscores its versatility at the expense of consistency.

At 45 minutes, Can Our Love... is Tindersticks' most concise album yet, and it sacrifices nothing in content. Eight songs may not seem like much for a full album, but it's all this band needs to make a fully rewarding listen that only gets richer the more you visit.

The most focused Sparklehorse effort yet, the album flows along with the grace of a river occasionally stirred by a rapid or two.

Dragonslayer is a lither, more athletic Sunset record--easier to like, easier to understand.

That mischief is largely missing from Origin: Orphan, and the lack of lyrical cleverness seems to have infected the music as well, making for a mostly cloudy listen from a formerly sunny-day band.

So while Pinch might not have moved on from dubstep completely, he's definitely moved somewhere, and it sounds like an exciting place to be.

Howard's Brainfeeder debut shatters expectations, offering an always shifting balance of alien and familiar. [But] It's not perfect.

He manages to satiate his obsession for thousand-detail soundscaping while creating pieces that walk the line of sensory overload, never overwhelming but always blurring the edges.

Throughout Flatland, Objekt reclaims his genre's all-too-familiar affectations by making us hear them for the first time all over again.

It’s a strong album, but it’s not another Forever Changes, whose accomplishments in retrospect were unrepeatable, or even another Four Sail. On the other hand, Lee wasn’t aiming to craft something in that vein.

I’m a Harmony finds her drawing on the strengths of her current collaborators--several of whom she worked with on The Soul of All Natural Things, or on their own projects--to push her sound outward.

His music is both a challenge and a balm, the starting point of a conversation and a place you can go to meditate on what’s been said.

The results are as reassuring as the memory of your favorite counselor picking up a weather-beaten acoustic guitar by the light of the campfire.

Mia Gargaret’s patient pace and contemplative tone encapsulate these questions of existence, dissociation, and introspection.

The new compilation Assembly adroitly selects high-water marks from Strummer’s solo career while never quite ameliorating the ”what if” questions that haunt the Clash’s legacy.

It’s a reminder that King Gizzard usually peak when wandering far beyond a clear-cut path. The coming of their most concise and carefree release truly could not have been better timed.

McMurtry sounds more engaged here, more focused, and more generous to his hard-luck characters.

Takeshi, Atsuo, and Wata have reflected abstract magic on W. Like a port in a storm, the foundations may occasionally shake, but, for the duration of the record, it feels like the safest place to hide.

The album feels about five times larger with the inclusion of “Jordan,” its first single. Whereas the rest of the record sounds homey, “Jordan” surveys alien territory.

Sonescent slips between Reynols’ brilliant Blank Tapes, where you imagine musical shapes coming from re-recorded sleice, and Ned Lagin’s immersive Seastones series, where there’s so much music you have to tease out the hidden figures.

With these outtakes, Olsen zooms out and reveals some of the rockier steps along her journey toward self-discovery.